In a Memorial Day entry on Twitter (05-28-18), it seems our current president stated, “Happy Memorial Day! Those who died for our great country would be very happy and proud at how well our country is doing today. Best economy in decades, lowest unemployment numbers for Blacks and Hispanics EVER (& women in 18years), rebuilding our Military and so much more. Nice!”
Saying, “Happy Memorial Day!” is never appropriate on a day set aside to honor those who have given the ultimate sacrifice.
Memorial Day is a day of solemn remembrance to honor America’s heroes who sacrificed and suffered during those hells known as war.
To add insult to injury, on a day devoted to extolling the achievements and sacrifices of our heroic war dead, our current president, through Twitter, chose to engage in self-aggrandizement, extolling alleged achievements under his administration, alleged achievements with which, I believe, many Republicans and Democrats would take issue.
Using Twitter to highlight one’s own supposed accomplishments on a national day observing our deceased military heroes is totally reprehensible to me and demonstrates an obvious lack of understanding for the reason we observe Memorial Day.
My husband lost two brothers in the Vietnam War.
Memorial Day will never be happy for my husband and our family, nor will Memorial Day ever be happy for the other countless patriots’ families who have lost their loved ones in service to our great country.
In addition, in my opinion, it is ignorantly presumptuous for our current President to say that our war dead would be “very happy and proud of how well our country is doing today.”
My patriotic brothers-in-law, who were both lost in the Vietnam War, believed in the foundations of our Constitution and its amendments. I would be very surprised if either were “very happy and proud” of how our current President constantly denigrates one our Constitution’s main freedoms: the freedom of the press.
My dead brothers-in-law fought and died for all of the Constitutions’ provisions – not just for a cherry-picked few.
When my father and my father-in-law fought the evil Axis in World War II on different sides of the world, they both fought for all of the Constitutions’ provisions, not just for a cherry-picked few.
My father-in-law received a Purple Heart for the copious blood he spilled preserving our Constitution, so we all could continue to live and to enjoy all the freedoms it affords …including freedom of the press.
In fact, when our current President took the oath of office at his presidential inauguration, he swore to“faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and…to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
In my opinion, by demeaning the press incessantly, with the exception of his praising news outlets favoring his stances, Donald Trump is not fulfilling his oath of office.
If Donald Trump is trying to suppress the open discourse provided through our Constitution’s guaranteed free press…he would not be fulfilling his oath of office to ‘protect and defend the Constitution.’
Anyone with historical knowledge understands that, when a leader attempts to undermine and/or suppress a free press (whether that free press source is favorable or unfavorable to that leader’s policies), he is following the playbook of past and present dictators around the world.
The clear path to dictatorship is a leader’s denigrating and/or removing outlets that can speak against his policies (e.g., free press, free media).
Americans must beware when they may hear Donald Trump compliment cruel and oppressive leaders around the world….leaders who rule by removing adversaries and/or by removing adversarial agencies (e.g., Turkey’s Recep Erdagon, the Phillipines’ Rodrigo Duterte, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin).
If an American president compliments dictators who have risen to power…and, who keep their power through the elimination of critics…one must begin to worry that he, too, may aspire to rule our government with similar tactics.
When CNN and the Associated Press reportedly were not admitted to an EPA conference on water contamination last month, I believe the tenets of our Constitution and our Constitutional rights as citizens were being trampled.
When confronted with a question from a journalist during the G7 Summit on Saturday, 6/9/18, our current President aggressively retorted, “Who are you with?”
When the journalist replied, “CNN” and Trump replied, “I figured…. fake news, CNN, the worst,” our Constitutional rights were being trampled (specifically, freedom of the press) again.
As a President of the United States who has sworn to “….faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and…to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” Donald Trump’s aforementioned reply to the CNN journalist is evidence of his doing anything but protecting and defending our Constitution, in my opinion.
Freedom of the press is a part of our Constitution’s First Amendment.
To insult and demean a journalist because he represents a news agency that, in Donald Trump’s opinion, is adversarial, seems to demonstrate our current President’s failure to ‘protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.’
At a rally in Moon Township, Pennsylvania in March, 2018, our current president stated, “Fake as hell CNN. The worst. So fake. Fake news…” when referencing the news channel.
Again, in my opinion, by making such a statement, our current President is failing to fulfill his oath of office to ‘protect and defend the Constitution of the United States’…a Constitution in which our right of having a free press is integral.
Have some Americans forgotten how the press was suppressed in Germany in the 1930s when stories involving a rising dictator were being covered?
What next? Will libraries be targeted for closing because they may have too many books on their shelves that Donald Trump deems are unfairly covering his presidency?
It is not the job of an American president to tell American citizens which news channels are better than others, yet, this is exactly what appears to have happened in Trump’s Moon Township, Pennsylvania rally in March, 2018, when he referenced CNN, again, by stating, “…And….Their ratings are lousy, by the way… and compared to Fox.”
Many of the world’s past dictators wrote books prior to their rise to power revealing their strategies for a new world order.
Is this what our current President did before running for the highest office in our great country? I certainly hope not.
It would be wise for all of us to read our current President’s prior writings to try to gain insight into his possible playbook for our collective future…beyond his current stated strategies.
The respected 20th century philosopher, George Santayana, once reminded us, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
The past really can be prologue.
Kathy Rittel
East Williston
